


Scintilla

by TheMarkOfEyghon



Series: Nexus [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26211811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMarkOfEyghon/pseuds/TheMarkOfEyghon
Summary: A midnight conversation about the new recruit.
Relationships: Rupert "Ripper" Giles / Ethan Rayne (implied)
Series: Nexus [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903621
Kudos: 7





	Scintilla

“You like him,” Ethan says. 

The rim of the mug of beer that Ripper had been about to sip the froth off of presses hard against his bottom lip when he falters in response and he lowers it back down to the table. “Who?” he asks, uncomprehendingly. 

Ethan cracks a peanut under his glass, grinding it down so that the shell and nut alike slowly break down into a fine powder instead of answering right away. It irritates Ripper, who finds himself counting down the seconds of silence. If he reaches one back from twenty, he’ll drop the whole thing and maybe get up to go and chat up that cute redhead at the bar who looked like she was lonely. Better use of his time than trying to figure out what’s making Ethan pull a face like someone had spit on his grandmother’s grave. 

“Randall,” Ethan says, finally, just as Ripper’s internal countdown reaches three. “You liked him.” 

“Yeah,” Ripper says, feeling like something has just been thrown over his head but he can’t be sure what. He gives up on his beer and starts to go for a cigarette instead. Could light up and let the plume of blue-grey smoke build up between them as a shield to keep him from being able to see that look that Ethan is fixing him with. “He was a’right. Can see why you wanted to bring him. Sharp, that one.” 

And not at all like the usual strays that Rayne lures home with him. Ethan was a magnet for all types, always drawing someone into his web. Each person was stranger than the last. Ripper’d assumed that it was because no one with any common sense would be drawn into something by him but maybe it was more that Ethan liked the attention that the parade of bizarre people got him from the rest of them because of Randall? 

Well, he was normal. 

Maybe more normal than any of them. 

Real slick, well-dressed, and intelligent. Italian kid who was studying to be a doctor and couldn’t quite explain how he’d ended up being friends with someone like Ethan Rayne, only valiantly trying to stammer out a few words in the bloke’s defense when Ripper (only semi-jokingly) asked him why the hell he’d ever want to be caught dead around him. Which meant he was loyal, too. 

Good traits. Hard to find in friends. So, yeah. Ripper’d liked him. What he didn’t like was the way that Ethan was looking at him now, waiting for an answer to a question that Ripper was sure that he wouldn’t actually ask. It’s troubling and irritating when he should be well-past halfway into being drunk and without a care in the world.

“I think he liked you too,” Ethan grabbed another peanut, pushed it under his glass with his index finger, and pushed down. Crushing it with a lot of care and concentration. “Isn’t that grand?” 

“What’s not to like?” Ripper asks, taking a stab at a joke because the tension that Ethan’s creating with every question is too much and it’s too late for him to try to figure out this particular puzzle — defuse whatever bomb that Ethan had twisted himself into this time. 

Ethan doesn’t answer his rhetorical question. 

He doesn’t smile either.

Just reaches for another peanut and Ripper drops his unlit cigarette to pick up his drink and take a proper gulp. The foam’s killed itself off into just a thin layer of fizz on top of his drink like pond scum. 

“You liked him. He liked you. Things worked out so well, didn’t they?” 

“Are you fucking stoned?” Ripper finally asks, grabbing away the bowl of peanuts before Ethan can crush another one instead of answering. “He was a good find, okay? You found a good bloke. Smart enough to read a spell, dumb enough to get involved with the likes of us. Is that what you want to hear? That I think you’re dead bloody brill for bringing him in?” 

“I was just recapping. I think it’s good for everyone to know where things stand.” 

“Who’s everyone? It’s just us here,” Ripper says, not wholly convinced that Ethan isn’t stoned. “And I think I know my own mind, ta very much.” 

“You think he’ll want to join up?” Ethan asks, suddenly changing the topic. 

Ripper’s almost grateful for the whiplash. “Dunno. Think you made a convincing argument. Bet he’ll want to come around and see if we were telling the truth about the magics before he signs on.” 

“The more people involved, the more intense a high.” 

Ethan’s got a smile back on his face and Ripper exhales a sigh of relief. The weird mood, as it was, seems to have passed like storm clouds of the horizon. 

“Don’t have to sell me. Last time I was so buzzed I didn’t sleep for three days,” he grins at the memory, and his limbs tingle in anticipation of an even better high that might be found in the future. “Got a lot done, though. Mostly pretty blonde birds but the occasional brunette to mix things up.” 

Ethan steals back the peanut bowl and then pelts Ripper with three of them at once. “Scoundrel.” 

“The one and only.” 

✧

Ethan passes out in Ripper’s bed, that night, after making slurred promises that he wouldn’t be staying this time. Whatever ice had been there in the air between them had melted away into a puddle of Irish Bastard that Ripper had to half-drag and half-carry to the side to get even a sliver of mattress for himself. 

Nothing had changed. And that was a comforting thought. 


End file.
